Dishonored: Dunwall City Trials clip raps and stabs

CB Droege, 9th December 2012

In Dishonored, the player finds themselves in the role of Attano, a member of the Empress' bodyguard who has been framed for her assassination.

A mysterious stranger gives him a mark of magical power, and he escapes from the dungeons, embarking on a mission of revenge in a steampunky city.

It is then left to the player to decide how this revenge is executed. Each mission is a target who must be removed from the city. True, one could always just barrel through with brute force, but there are a number of spells, powers and gadgets that allows players to sneak in or take a variety of other routes.

The developers have expressed a focus on player choice very specifically. Not only are there dozens of ways to complete each quest, but the player also decides how much chaos to cause. Killing people and destroying things causes more chaos, and as the chaos in the city rises, the environment changes, the story changes, and paths open and close. No path is the 'right' path, just different. It’s even possible to complete the entire game without killing anyone, even the mission targets—as long as they are removed from power, the mission is a success.

Dunwall City Trials is an atypical DLC, in that doesn't add any story or quests, but, rather, presents the player with ten new standalone challenges of stealth and/or combat. Set in an interesting, floating version of the setting from the main game, the player is presented with slightly more limited paths, which must be traversed with particular objectives in mind. Similar to the base game, the player can choose have to dispatch the target, but unlike the base game, there are no overarching consequences, sine the challenges don't tie into the main plot, freeing players to experiment with methods they might not have wanted their character to go through with in the game's story mode.

Don't step off the walkway, it's a long way down.

While this expansion doesn't add any new story content, Bethesda reps have promised that two more DLC are en route for the new year, which should expand the quests and canon of the base game.

Dishonored: Dunwall City Trials will be available for download on Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows on December 11, 2012 - for about $5.